IB+12+Assignments

= = = = =Homework November 10 and 12:= Prepare "The Balck Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me" photocopy for model commentary.

= = =Toussaint photocopy Homework:=

Go over exam questions, select 3 from the "Novel" and/or "General Questions" catagories, and prepare a detailed outline of your response, using quotations or references as support for your arguments. Have a great holiday! =Homework due for October 8:=

Decide which group you will be joining for the thematic presentations on //Wuthering Heights//; remember that you will be developing a unit on your theme. Begin with an overview of the theme, use the questions to guide you through a structure, and include visual data/presentation to illustrate your points (literally and metaphorically); you may also present a re-enactment of a scene. __Specific examples and references to the text are mandatory for each question__.


 * 1. The Role of Social Class**:
 * Identify the social class of the Earnshaws, the Lintons, and Heathcliff. Which is of a higher social class? How do you know? Why is this significant?
 * How does social class motivate Catherine's actions? How does she change her class?
 * How does Heathcliff's social class influence the way in which he is treated? How does Heathcliff's class change? Is he "true" to a certain class or representative of it?
 * What is the role of class in the novel? How do tensions in the book result from these struggles?
 * What role do the servants Nelly, Joseph and Zillah play in the novel?


 * 2. The Significance of Setting**
 * Describe the setting of the Yorkshire moors.
 * Describe the houses of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Include descriptions of architecture and surrounding landscape.
 * How do the houses reflect their inhabitants?
 * Do the houses symbolize their inhabitants?
 * How do the settings influence ths novel's characters?

We will spend Monday assembling the presentations, so you must be re-reading the text for examples to support your position. Bring this work with you on Monday so that we can best use our time.

Letter From Richard Wilbur Dear Penny,

I don't get letters like yours every day, and I wish I did. It makes me pleasantly dizzy to think of being read by 170,000 teachers for a week. In the long history of exposure, it beats even Gypsy Rose Lee.

Let me see what I can remember about the poem's inception. The poem was first published in //Poetry// (Chicago) in February of 1948, and that means that it was written during the lawn-mowing months of 1947. We (Charlee and I and our daughter Ellen) were then living in Cambridge, and I, having earned an MA at Harvard, was about to begin a three-year Junior Fellowship there. At some time during the summer, Charlee's cousins, the Tapleys, who lived in Wellesley Hills, invited us to look after their house and grounds while they went off on a vacation jaunt. We were happy to get out of the city, and the house was far bigger and airier than our Plympton Street apartment, and so the sojourn in Wellesley Hills was agreeable to us, even though we felt somewhat oppressed by what we perceived as the tepid gentility of the town.

Most of my poems are made out of accumulated thoughts and feelings and perceptions, and almost never does it happen that I have an experience and then go straight to a chair and write about it. But that's how it happened with "The Death of a Toad." Mowing the Tapley's suburban lawn one day, I mortally injured a toad, and before the day was out I had made that into a poem. Why did that occur? I think it was because I was young, and just out of military service, and spoiling to live, and felt, as I said before, oppressed by the safe, somnolent retirement-village atmosphere of Wellesley Hills; part of me identified, therefore, with the toad, and made me see the toad as representing the primal energies of the Earth, afflicted by the sprawl of our human dominion.

The first two lines of the third stanza are out to associate to toad with those "primal energies" -- and of course there is biological ground for doing so. The words are out to magnify the toad and at the same time to be disarming about that -- to acknowledge by an undertone of humor that I am making a great deal of a very small creature. My tonal ambiguity has worked for some readers but did not work, as I recall, for Randall Jarrell.

The poem has an ad hoc stanza form, created by the way the phrasing wanted to happen. It's scannable as a "loose iambic" poem in the metrical pattern 465543. I think that in '47 I was beginning to enjoy incorporating the six-foot line in some of my made-up stanzas; later I did so in a poem called "Beasts." The six-footer being very often a slow and awkward measure, it's a challenge to use it effectively, and in support of one's meaning.

Whether my toad actually took refuge under a cineraria or not, I can't say; but it had the right shape and shade of leaf for my poem. I recall, for some reason, that the first stanza originally ended "in a dim,/ Low, and an ultimate glade." That sounded too good to me, and I knew why when I remembered Poe's description of Dream-Land as "an ultimate dim Thule." In the first lines of the poem I imagined the declining sun as moving -- so setting suns may appear to do -- along the horizon, and that's what led me to use the verb "steer," which has given trouble to a number of my readers. Quite reasonably, some have seen in that word not a verb meaning "to pursue a course" but a noun meaning "a castrated animal." It's led me to consider, more than once, replacing "steer" with "veer."

Does that give you what you were after? Thank you for the news of Barbara and of the tearing-up of our lane in Key West, and our very best wishes to you,

Dick =Nov 2008= //Either// //(a) The trusted friend and betraying ally are recurring elements in fiction. In what ways and to// //what extent have// **//at least two//** //writers in your study made some use of such characterizations?// //Or// //(b) “For a piece of fiction to have lasting value, it must make some social or political statement.”// //To what extent is this assertion true, based on// **//at least two//** //works you have studied?//


 * General Questions on Literature**
 * 5. //Either//**
 * (a) The description of people or places or events in literary works is likely to be more than** **just decoration. Compare several instances in at least two of the works you have studied** **where description has had a crucial effect on the work.**
 * //Or//**
 * (b) The courage to think or speak or act differently from others is often at the heart of literature.** **In what ways have at least two writers you have studied presented such choices?**
 * //Or//**
 * (c) Literature frequently “challenges the barriers that prejudice erects”. How convincingly have** **at least two writers in your study presented such barriers and with what effect have they** **been opposed?**
 * //Or//**
 * (d) “In literature, names are never wasted.” In at least two works you have studied, discuss the** **ways writers use names in their works to achieve their larger purpose.**

**Nov 2005**

(a) Acquiring material wealth or rejecting its attractions has often been the base upon which writers have developed interesting plots. Compare the ways the writers of two or three works you have studied have developed such motivations. //Or// (b) “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” Focusing on **one** of these demands for the writing of fiction, show how it emerges as a significant factor in creating interest in two or three works you have studied.
 * Prose: The Novel and Short Story**
 * 3.** //Either//

(a) “Some works of literature are universal and timeless; others seem specific to one place and/or time.” In what ways do two or three works in your study explore this range of possibilities? //Or// (b) A writer speaks of being “surprised by joy.” In two or three works you have studied, discuss some moments which have surprised and/or delighted you and consider the ways writers have achieved those particular effects. //Or// (c) Using two or three of the works you have studied, discuss how and to what effect writers have used exaggeration as a literary device. //Or// (d) Writers make many deliberate choices in the course of creating their works. Considering one or two stylistic aspects, compare the effectiveness of some choices writers have made in two or three works you have studied. (a) Using two or three of the works you have studied, discuss to what extent and to what effect the writers have used the particular features of urban and/or rural settings? //Or// (b) By what means have the writers influenced how you feel about important characters in two or three works that you have studied?
 * General Questions on Literature**
 * 5.** //Either//
 * Prose: The Novel and Short Story**
 * 3.** //Either//

(a) In what ways do writers use “non-conformist” views or people as material for their writing? You must base you answer on two or three works you have studied. //Or// (b) “Chronological order is the most convincing way to convey a story or an idea.” Comparing two or three of the works you have studied, agree or disagree with this statement. //Or// (c) Much literature has been written about death and dying. How and to what effect has this subject been explored in two or three of the works you have studied? //Or// (d) “Although humans claim to desire freedom above all else, many prefer security.” In the light of this statement discuss two or three works you have studied, showing the ways in which they have presented attitudes to freedom and/or security.
 * General Questions on Literature**
 * 5.** //Either//

=May 2008=

=HW to prepare for Monday, 29 March= =HW for Thursday, 25 March= Study the following revision notes. Then look for ways in which you can expand on them, both in terms of additional examples from the texts mentioned, as well as from others in Part 3.
 * Prose: The Novel and Short Story**
 * 3. //Either//**
 * (a) Discuss the ways in which at least two novels or short stories you have studied demonstrate that the search for identity can be a conscious or an unconcious process.**
 * //Or//**
 * (b) “Defiance becomes our duty in the face of injustice.” Referring to at least two works you have studied, explore the ways in which the writers have attempted to persuade us to accept or challenge this view.**
 * General Questions on Literature**
 * 5. //Either//**
 * (a) “Why won’t writers allow children simply to be children?” Discuss the presentation and significance of children, or the state of childhood, in at least two works you have studied in the light of this complaint.**
 * //Or//**
 * (b) It is said that writers are the conscience of the world. In what ways have at least two of the works you have studied encouraged you to appreciate or question this assertion?**
 * //Or//**
 * (c) “ Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.” Discuss at least two works you hav**
 * e studied in light of this statement, and say how far you would agree with it.**
 * //Or//**
 * (d) “Although doubt is not a pleasant condition, certainty is an absurd one.” In the light of this statement, explore the impressions of doubt and/or certainty conveyed in at least two works you have studied.**
 * Prepare copious notes on the following passages for commentary. In addition, you should write the introduction for a commentary for each of them (ca. half a side each). We will be discussing these in class on Monday.
 * Review the Worsley School pages on Allusion and Periphrasis: [[image:Allusion.gif width="115" height="110" link="@http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/allusion/page"]][[image:Periphrasis.gif width="99" height="105" link="@http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/peri/phrasis.html"]]

Finish listening to the interview with Doris Lessing

=Homework for Monday, 22 March= Read and take copious notes on the following passage. Then find a passage from two of the other Part 3 works that you think would provide suitable points for comparison. Be prepared (with notes!!!) to defend your choices. No collusion please!

=Homework for Thursday, 11 March:= ==

=Huck Finn Key Passages:=

=Background Reading Assignments:= (only the first essay in this journal!)



=Classwork for Friday, 27 Nov.= Take careful notes on the Henry IV passages and be prepared to discuss them in class on Monday. Act 1 “So shaken as we are… In forwarding this dear expedience.” (ll. 1 – 33, Act I, Sc. 1) “On Holy Rood Day … Then I would have his Harry, and he mine.” (ll. 51 – 89, Act I, Sc. 1) “ Well, for two of them, … Redeeming time when men think least I will.” (ll. 173 – 207, Act I, Sc. 2) “My liege, I did deny no prisoners …betwixt my love and your high majesty.” (ll. 29 – 69, Act I, Sc. 3)

Act 2 2.2.10-46 (192-193) 2.3.1-35 (198-200) 2.3.73-108 (203-205) 2.4.433-467 (232-234)

Act 3 3.2.44-84 3.2.92 to 3.2.129 3.3.12 to 3.3.49

Act 4 4.1.28 to 4.1.55

Act 5 Scene 1, Line 1 - 33 Act 5 Scene 2, Line 3 - 40





October Break Homework Assignment
The attached PDF file has reading comprehension questions and vocabulary to help you review your understanding of Macbeth. You should take copious notes on these questions; they will be the basis for class discussion when we return after the break.

World Lit Paper 2 Deadlines:

 * Before October Break -- Choice of Topic
 * Manoo p. 137 -139 Shukov and Aloysha conversation at the end of the story
 * Lucas -- __The examples of the millions of diversified and contrasting people from all over Europe of all different social classes who were sent to concentration camps where they were all looked at from the same level in //If This is a Man// by Primo Levi__
 * Sophie -- page 73 to 77 of One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch.
 * Micky -- pages 58 to 60 -- focus on the unjust punishment and how Solzhenitsyn uses understatement to grab our attention
 * Chris - Shukov's feelings towards religion and how these develop through the story... (Though I'm still deciding)
 * Calem-- p.140-143 Reflection on life in the camp.
 * Martin -- p.25-7 in //If This Is A Man// (the closing of chapter one)
 * Sareen -- A Diary Entry by Fetiukov
 * 18 Nov. -- First Draft (complete!)
 * 24th Feb. -- Final Copy
 * 24th Feb. -- Final Copy

Additional Higher Level Reading Assignment:
Reading Assignments: